“Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever?” – Lord Lytton

I recently got my hands on
Wario: Master of Disguise [affiliate]. This game fully takes advantage of the DS’s unique stylus ability and reminds me very much of the Wii’s Wario: Smooth Moves games with the mini games. The whole game requires you to play with the stylus to direct fire or do a special move or change disguises while your right hand maneuvers Wario with the X,Y,A,B buttons (or the controller pad if you’re right-handed). Not that it’s bad, but make sure that you have some support for your right hand since you’ll not only be playing with the button controls, but you’ll also be holding the DS with that hand since your dominant hand is holding the stylus.
So far, most of the game is pretty straight forward. The riddles and puzzles are almost too easy although the game play is fairly amusing. Very much like any of the Mario games with the Wario twist.
You go around as Wario duking it out with a television show thief trying to be the better thief of the two. More of the little boy humor, your thief name is Purple Wind in reference to flatulence. With each of your disguises, you gain special abilities that allow you to bypass the puzzles or overcome obstacles. With ten long levels in all and many items to collect, there is an abundance of replay value. Gamespot only gives this game a 6.1 rating due to non-polished controls, but users have giving it a fair 7.2. Myself, I find this in the league of the rest of the Marios. Fun, not as amusing in storyline but if you’ve played other Wario games, you’ll understand that it’s in the same concept and has the same feel. In that instance, this is probably one of the more polished games since Wario games are usually pretty lacking in graphical umph.